


It's Where We Go From Here

by forgivenessishardforus



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Butterflies, F/M, Road Trip, Season/Series 04, canonverse, glowing forest, post 401, pre 402, spec fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9599504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgivenessishardforus/pseuds/forgivenessishardforus
Summary: “Thank you. For believing in me,” he says when she turns her head to look at him, and she smiles, soft and sad.“You’re not lost, Bellamy,” she says. “Whatever you may believe--what happened with Pike, what’s between you and your sister--you’re not lost.”“Neither are you,” he says, because he knows she feels the same sense of unforgiving despair swirling within her, the dark bleakness that still threatens to suck him down some nights, the unresolved grief they’d never had the time to properly feel. Knowing that she finds the strength to keep going, he thinks, is what gives him the strength to do the same.And then, because something in her gaze causes his chest to inexplicably tighten, he turns his gaze back to the path ahead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone mentioned Bellarke and glowing forest so...this happened. Takes place after they leave Polis at the end of 4x01 but before they (presumably) arrive in Arkadia in 4x02. Just pretend that Jaha's not with them, okay?

The sun is setting over Polis as they drive away; he watches in the rear-view mirror as the sky slips from clear blue to orange and gold, appearing for a handful of moments as if it’s been consumed by fire, a sight both portentous and prophetic.  

“ _ Praimfaya _ ,” he murmurs to himself. The fire that had ended the world. The fire that would end it again. 

Clarke, who had been dozing in the passenger seat, head knocking against the glass of the side window as the rover jolts and bumps along, stirs at the sound of his voice. “What’s that?” 

“Nothing,” he says quickly, regretting having spoken. “Go back to sleep. You need it.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she says, “and so do you. I can keep you company, at least.” 

He nods, before glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “Do you have any ideas? On how we’ll survive?” 

“Maybe Raven will have come up with something by the time we get back to Arkadia.” She sighs. “Until then...handle one problem at a time.” 

“The way we always have.” He feels the corner of his mouth curl up into something almost resembling a smile, before quickly dropping. “Keep pushing on...and on.” 

The weight of everything they’ve been through, everything that yet lies ahead, lands heavily upon him, bringing with it an exhaustion somehow more than can be attributed to not having slept a full night since they’d left Luna’s rig. It lodges itself in his bones, enough to almost drag his hands from the steering wheel.

At every turn, it seems, they had come up against yet another adversary that would steal lives from them, steal the life from them, sap them of hope and happiness and innocence, twist them into someone they didn’t even recognize. And yet they had continued on. They had continued on because they had no other choice, because they wanted to survive, but sometimes he thinks--

He couldn’t have done it without her. 

He glances quickly at Clarke again, and she doesn’t notice; her gaze is focused ahead, on the trees that have turned purplish in the fading light. “Thank you,” he says before faltering, because there’s so much he could--and should--thank her for: 

For sharing and easing the burden. For recognizing within him someone he thought had been lost. For making the hard decisions that had saved their people, time and time again. 

For coming home with him. For trusting him. 

“For believing in me,” he says when she turns her head to look at him, and she smiles, soft and sad. 

“You’re not lost, Bellamy,” she says. “Whatever you may believe--what happened with Pike, what’s between you and your sister--you’re not lost.” 

“Neither are you,” he says, because he knows she feels the same sense of unforgiving despair swirling within her, the dark bleakness that still threatens to suck him down some nights, the unresolved grief they’d never had the time to properly feel. Knowing that she finds the strength to keep going, he thinks, is what gives him the strength to do the same. 

And then, because something in her gaze causes his chest to inexplicably tighten, he turns his gaze back to the path ahead. “I think we might be, though,” he jokes weakly. “Do you remember how to get back to Arkadia?” 

“East, and then south,” Clarke says, unnecessarily. She knows that his sense of direction rarely leads him astray. 

“And straight on till morning,” he mutters, and then senses Clarke staring at him. “It’s from--”

“Peter Pan, I know.” There’s a wistful note in Clarke’s voice. “The boy who never grew up.” He knows that she, like him, is thinking of all the dead they’ve buried along the way, kids who would never get the chance to grow old. Their names whisper in the heavy silence that follows.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks after a moment, knowing that her mind, like his, has gone to those deaths most painful and recent. 

There’s a long pause before she says, “I know you hated her. I did too, for a while. But I loved her. I did.” 

“I know,” he says. He had known long before Clarke had said it out loud, had known since she had first told them how Lexa had died, in a voice cold and emotionless and on the edge of breaking.

“She’s dead because of me.” CLarke’s voice is hardly more than a whisper. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I’m the one who killed her.” 

“You’re not.” He hesitates a moment before adding, “I blamed myself for Gina’s death. Thought that if I hadn’t trusted Echo, if I hadn’t left, I could’ve stopped it. Could’ve saved her. But I’m not the one who sent the assassin to Mount Weather and gave him the self-destruct codes, Emerson and Ice Nation did that. And you’re not the one who picked up a gun and shot Lexa, Titus did that.” 

Clarke doesn’t say anything, which probably means she disagrees, and he doesn’t blame her; if he said that he didn’t still feel guilt over those who had died even if not directly by his hand, it would be a lie. But he was trying. 

“You loved her? Gina?” 

“I did.” Not enough, he thinks--not as much as she deserved.

“I’m sorry.” 

“So am I.” 

Another heavy pause, before Clarke says, “Do you think we’ll ever stop losing people?”

“Honestly? I don’t think this world will ever be that forgiving.” 

“But we don’t give up.” There’s a hint of a question in her voice, for him, and he answers it with a firm shake of his head.

“We don’t give up.” 

They drive through the night, the rover’s headlights bouncing off the trees, until the vehicle’s power abruptly dies and they roll to a gentle stop. SIlence engulfs them, strange and foreboding in its completeness, until he figures out why. 

“Hear that? No insects.” 

Clarke isn’t listening. “Bellamy,  _ look _ .” 

In the absence of the glare from the headlights, the forest is coming alive with a light of its own: sleepily, the trees surrounding them begin to glow, until they cast enough light to throw Clarke’s profile into relief. She’s smiling in a way he hasn’t seen in months: eyes bright, teeth white, cheeks dimpled and round. 

“I know where we are,” she whispers in wonder, and before he can respond she’s thrown open the passenger side door and is stepping into the night. 

“How have you stayed alive this long?” he mutters before following after her. The night is eerily quiet, and he can’t help being on guard despite the strange beauty surrounding him. 

Clarke is a couple of yards in front of him, kneeling in front of moss that glows like pearls and bathes her face in soft, white light. She looks up at him, that wondrous smile still on her face, and his chest tightens again, before releasing. 

“Come here,” she says quietly, and he lets his guard drop--a little--as he moves to kneel beside her. In the moss three butterflies are nestled, their electric blue wings translucent and luminous and fanning slowly open and closed. 

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Clarke whispers, reaching out with an extended finger. Rather than fluttering away, the butterfly latches onto her skin and she brings it up to her face so that the gentle luminescence of its wings seems to reflect in her eyes. 

The back of his throat aches with something like longing and loss, because moments like this shouldn’t-- _ couldn’t-- _ exist in their world, not without immediately being destroyed. Unconsciously, he finds himself reaching out, not for the butterfly but for  _ Clarke _ , because there is something about her so innocent, so fleetingly pure, that he can’t help but want to touch it, want to hold it. She lifts her eyes to his and he lets his hand fall uselessly into his lap. 

“We should get back to the rover,” he says, voice a little rough. “It might not be safe out here. This forest is unnaturally quiet.” 

“Is anything else about it natural?” Clarke asks, before sighing and placing the butterfly back on the moss. “You’re right, though.” 

The light from the trees illuminates the inside of the rover, enough for them to see by as they lock the doors from the inside and stretch out in the back. The floor is cold and hard beneath him, but it’s not the worst thing he’s slept on, and despite the exhaustion that’s tugging on him, he finds his eyes unwilling to close. 

Next to him, Clarke’s head is pillowed on her arm, tangles of blonde hair limned in the forest’s glow spilling over her shoulder. He listens as her breathing deepens and slows, and thinks about how she had looked in the forest, features soft and young, smile bright, eyes brilliant and how, maybe in a different world they could have spent longer living in that moment, taking in its beauty without worrying about its hidden dangers.

And the reason, he thinks, that he hasn’t given up is because moments like that are worth fighting for. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated, let me know what you thought! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr: forgivenessishardforus


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